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EU4 - Development Diary - 28th of February 2017

Good day everyone, Tuesday spells for us a new EU4 Development Diary and while certain members are away enjoying the high life at GDC, it falls to me to bring you today's juicy serving of new mechanics.

As teased last week, we shall look closer at the Empire of China, a new concept in the upcoming expansion. In 1444, Ming is busy being the top dog in Asia and indeed the world, but they were not the first to claim Mandate over China and certainly not the last. We are not even one hundred years from the total collapse of the Yuan domination of china and only two hundred years shy of the successor nation Qing.

An important goal for us is to bring new play experiences across the world. Previously as a nation in East Asia, one would generally wait for Ming to crumble to rebellions, usually from loss of the Mandate of Heaven modifier (or a lot of horses and a good shock phase), and then pick up the pieces from this "Mingsplosion" or playing as Ming, simply do everything in your power to avoid falling into aforementioned deadly Spiral. This isn't quite how we would like East Asia to play out. We wish to bring the whole experience to life In the upcoming expansion, as the Empire of China is now a title that is fought for!

eu4_123.png


Where to begin? Our glorious Ming Starts in 1444 with the Celestial throne with a moderate Mandate value. Mandate will grow over time supposing stability is high, States are prosperous and you have an extensive collection of Tributaries. Protect it well, since it will have a large effect on how well your nation will function: Provincial devastation and bordering nations who are not your Tributary or otherwise bending their knee to you will cause Mandate to suffer. At Maximum mandate, The emperor of China will enjoy unrest reduction and cheaper stability cost. Conversely, as Mandate goes down below 50, you will find your troops performing worse and your provinces producing fewer goods, as the people you supposedly rule over with Divine grace back you less and less.

Mandate can be used to pass Celestial Reforms. Not unlike the Holy roman Empire, The Emperor of China must foster the growth of their mandate and spend it to gain some fantastic bonuses. Each Reform can be taken at 80+ Mandate, each will reduce Mandate by 50 and Stability by 1.
  • Introduce Gaituguiliu
    • +0.5 Meritocracy
  • Reform Seaban
    • +1 Diplomats
    • +5% trade Efficiency
  • Delegate Zongdu
    • -0.05 Monthly autonomy
  • Establish Lifan Yuan
    • -10% Core creation Cost
  • Reshape Beurocratic Ranks
    • +1 Monarch Admin Power
Additionally, hawk-eyed readers will have spotted a new Hat in the top bar. Celestial Emperors do not use the Legitimacy values since they are all obviously legit. The Emperor instead has unique access to Meritocracy. This will naturally degrade every year but increases by having skilled advisors in your court. It is then spent on the 6 Decrees, also uniquely available to the Emperor of China.

  • Expand Palace Bureaucracy
    • -10% Development cost
    • -10% core Creation Cost
  • Conduct Population Census
    • +25% National Tax
  • Promote Naval Officers
    • +20% ship durability
  • Increase Tariff Control
    • +25% Provincial trade Power
  • Improve Defense Effort
    • +25% Fort Defense
  • Boost the Officer Corps
    • +10% Infantry Combat Ability
Each Decree lasts for 10 years, costs 20 Meritocracy and, of course, all values are subject to balance up until release, but that's par for the course.

So life is good for the Ming the Celestial Emperor. China is theirs, their tribute flows in regularly and they pass reforms and decrees as they see fit. Well, no single Empire lasts forever.

eu4_126.png


The Celestial throne is there for any Pagan or Eastern Religion nation to secure for themselves. In practice, The Northern Hordes, the Japanese, the Koreans and the Buddhists are all in with a fair shot at securing the title for themselves and have access to a new Casus Belli: Take Mandate of Heaven. Land is cheaper to take in this war. Far cheaper, and it will allow the attacker to secure the Throne for themselves. When this happens, all previous reforms are wiped and the new ruler will start with moderate Mandate themselves. After all, there is only one China and all history from before did not exist. The new Emperor of China will have to quickly establish themselves with their own tributaries and bring Prosperity to the people of China to avoid the fate of their disposed Predecessor. The failed old Emperor of China shall be subjected to the Lost Mandate of Heaven modifier in addition to losing their Empire of China modifiers. Better take care of them, before they collect themselves and put their mind to reclaiming their old throne.

The successful claimant will also enjoy permanent claim on all of China to help consolidate their new power, as our Dai Viet player @Ihki was putting to great effect.

eu4_124.png


Best of luck with your fight to secure the Mandate for yourself. We'll be back next week to talk about another new feature which has our team lamenting any moment that they have to play without it. See you then!
 
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So, Ming has gained several new provinces, lost its 50% autonomy, can make tons of tributaries, and gets access to a bunch of shiny new potential benefits if it plays remotely well.

What exactly is keeping it in check? Surely not the Banners system; while nice, that doesn't seem near enough to counter all these additional benefits. Is it that Ming simply doesn't attack anyone because it doesn't want to lose tributaries? Or are "Mingsplosions" now caused by an aggressive AI that attacks its tributaries and then loses mandate?

Being the emperor seems compelling (if easy), but being around the emperor seems even worse than usual now. I expect that isn't the case, as the dev diary opened with text suggesting exactly the opposite. That means I'm missing something -- either information that hasn't been conveyed, or connections that I'm not seeing.

Please help!
I'm guessing since you can't attack your tributaries, Ming can't aggressively expand while also maintaining all surrounding tributaries. So either it does the Emperor of China thing, or it expands. Once all the reforms are passed, though, they should be able to go nuts on expansion since it won't need tributaries anymore. Or at least that is what I'm guessing
 
china #1, taiwan #2
 
I'm guessing since you can't attack your tributaries, Ming can't aggressively expand while also maintaining all surrounding tributaries. So either it does the Emperor of China thing, or it expands. Once all the reforms are passed, though, they should be able to go nuts on expansion since it won't need tributaries anymore. Or at least that is what I'm guessing
But what do you do if you're a regional player that isn't Ming? You can't attack Ming because they're even more powerful than they were before (Banners are nice but even if they offset all the bonuses Ming is getting here, it'll still leave you where you are today -- waiting for a Mingsplosion). You can't readily attack Ming tributaries because Ming will come to their defense, so you still can't instigate a Mingsplosion. Well, I guess you can, if you attack tributary allies that aren't themselves tributaries and then pay the enormous cost to absorb them in peace deals, all to try to slowly eat away at Ming's mandate.

Or wait, tributaries can attack each other without Ming interfering, right? So I guess that means the strategy is to be a tributary, absorb every other tributary in range, then end your tributary status and hope you survive long enough for that to cause Ming to explode. Risky, but maybe viable and potentially interesting. Maybe try to time it at a ruler's death where stability might be lower?

It's like a weird Nega-HRE, where you want to invade within the collective yet still avoid the scary emperor.

I wonder if Ming will make a habit of allying its tributaries? If not, that might make invading Korea a lot more viable for Manchu, which is key to acquiring Ming-crushing strength.
 
On the topic of Japan, if the nation is united is it possible for the Yamato to become the ruling dynasty (Meiji reformation style or maybe something of the sort)? Because it'd be really cool for the Japanese Emperor to become the Emperor of China as well, particularly if it's as the oldest dynasty in history (Yamato). @DDRJake
Maybe some sort of war of the roses style mechanic where you get to pick between trying to install your shogun as emperor or support the legitimate emperor in overthrowing the shogun?

It is well within the realm of possibility for Japan to trade their Shogun position for the Celestial Throne.
Wait so if Japan becomes chinese emperor what happens to the daymios?

I read it every day. It also gets a -huge- number of threads, so forgive me if it seems like we don't.
Maybe you should consider adding subdirectories to the suggestion forum to make it a bit easier to manage?

It's almost as if Scandinavia And The World isn't an authoritative source on history/sociology/politics, but just some random Danish girl's personal national stereotypes dressed up in pseudo-anime form.
Well they've previously allowed some random french guy by the name of Voltaire's personal national stereotypes become mechanics so why re you complaining, at least this is just a joke, not an in game mechanic.

So you're saying we can have a sunrise invasion from the Aztecs?
Nice idea but not Aztecs. All must now before the Sapa Inca.

Ugh, to those of you who seem trigger happy with the "respectfully disagree" button yet can not actually counter my argument here is a bit of visual proof.
View attachment 244009
It may have changed in the dev diaries though.

I really hate to be that guy since I've wanted this expansion as much as anyone, but I really don't think Ryukyu is relevant enough to the period or important enough to warrant its own custom religion, let alone large enough for new provinces.
Yes thank you.

I'm all for adding new provinces as long as it can fit on the map without having its province name becoming unintelligible. I suspect, though, that EU5 map's total size will be larger than that of EU4 allowing for more stuffing of smaller provinces... one can only hope. :p But I think adding island provinces in Ryukyu's case might be doable and should make it more interesting to play at game start. No idea if splitting Okinawa is doable, though.
Not really time to start thinking about eu5 yet.
 
Having allies should decrease mandate somehow, whether a small decrease per month per ally, or a one time decrease when an alliance is made, or some other system. The middle kingdom should prefer guarantees and warnings, not alliances.
 
People complaining about the Qing-hat, while the hat for the Western military tech-group is a tricorn, which wasn't even used till much later in eu4's timeline. As well as the monarchy symbol being a crown, while not even all monarchies had such a crown.

Such complaints are just cute.
 
People complaining about the Qing-hat, while the hat for the Western military tech-group is a tricorn, which wasn't even used till much later in eu4's timeline. As well as the monarchy symbol being a crown, while not even all monarchies had such a crown.

Such complaints are just cute.
well there are hundreds of monarchies, while there is only one emperor of China at a time, with Ming in all likelihood holding on to it for a vast portion of the game's runtime, so saying that they should have a 'crown' that matches both Ming and Qing and many other Chinese dynasties.
 
Russia has an event in which China believed it to be a tributary, Fyodor Baikov's Diplomatic Intermezzo it is called on the Wiki. Are there any plans to change that event a bit, such as making Russia a tributary if you choose a certain option?

On a related note, would it be possible to allow all tributaries to become Emperor of China, regardless of religion, or would that be too inaccurate?
 
Its true there small and non important, but they have one of the hardest achievements in the game. They should at least add the islands of miyako and yeayama to the game as there not even present. They should also have there own culture at least considering they had there own language and traditions.

All though yeah there own religion may be be realistic and will never happen, still like the idea though

I'd be perfectly happy with Ryukyu getting its own culture, as that it does need. But a new province? Why we're at it, why don't we just divide Naxos? The whole point of the Ryukyu achievement is that it is supposed to be near-impossible; with only the best of the best pulling it off.

I'm all for adding new provinces as long as it can fit on the map without having its province name becoming unintelligible. I suspect, though, that EU5 map's total size will be larger than that of EU4 allowing for more stuffing of smaller provinces... one can only hope. :p But I think adding island provinces in Ryukyu's case might be doable and should make it more interesting to play at game start. No idea if splitting Okinawa is doable, though.

At best, there's a decent argument for a separate Amami as the Shimazu outright annexed it during the Invasion of Ryukyu, but I don't see any reasonable argument or point in any of the other island or island groups without having to give the same treatment to a bunch of other provinces and OPMs. And, yes, I'm fairly certain the province name would be unintelligible on something so small - and Ryukyu having only one province is part of its appeal.
 
well there are hundreds of monarchies, while there is only one emperor of China at a time, with Ming in all likelihood holding on to it for a vast portion of the game's runtime, so saying that they should have a 'crown' that matches both Ming and Qing and many other Chinese dynasties.
'Should' have? The hat symbolizes a clearly Asian mechanic, which is more than fine. I find it wondrous that people get their panties twisted because of this.
 
Now this just makes me want there to be a China tag in the game, with final reform transforming the reformer into 'China.'
They had the ability to form a "China" tag in EU3; however many players were unhappy about this (both Easterners and Westerners) as Ming, Qing, etc. WERE the China of their time(s). Not only would it be quite ahistorical for you to be able to form "China" AS China, it wouldn't make a lot of sense, either.
 
'Should' have? The hat symbolizes a clearly Asian mechanic, which is more than fine. I find it wondrous that people get their panties twisted because of this.
we're talking about Meritocracy right? that's a system specifically for the Celestial Empire government type, not some other more common government type from Asia.
 
So, Ming has gained several new provinces, lost its 50% autonomy, can make tons of tributaries, and gets access to a bunch of shiny new potential benefits if it plays remotely well.

What exactly is keeping it in check? Surely not the Banners system; while nice, that doesn't seem near enough to counter all these additional benefits. Is it that Ming simply doesn't attack anyone because it doesn't want to lose tributaries? Or are "Mingsplosions" now caused by an aggressive AI that attacks its tributaries and then loses mandate?

Being the emperor seems compelling (if easy), but being around the emperor seems even worse than usual now. I expect that isn't the case, as the dev diary opened with text suggesting exactly the opposite. That means I'm missing something -- either information that hasn't been conveyed, or connections that I'm not seeing.

Please help!
Given that each neighbouring tributary costs Mandate, I think an aggressive AI has the potential to explode fairly quickly.
 
Given that each neighbouring tributary costs Mandate, I think an aggressive AI has the potential to explode fairly quickly.
actually it's the opposite; more tributaries gives more mandate, but that in turn limits expansion paths sense you can't attack your tributaries.
 
See I think that the Yamato should be represented in Japan in one fashion or another, as well as having the ability of being the actual emperor of China should they gain the mandate. It simply doesn't make sense for the emperor of China to be the Shogun, someone who at least on paper is under the Japanese Emperor.
If the shogun becomes the emperor of china, it should have more than enough legitimacy to dethrone the Japanese emperor.
 
If the shogun becomes the emperor of china, it should have more than enough legitimacy to dethrone the Japanese emperor.
Should it? I would rather think he as huangdi would still be a subject to the tenno.